Beginning May 29 and running through June 3, Cuban waters are the scene for some 450 competitors to enjoy sport fishing, during the 67th edition of the Ernest Hemingway International Billfishing Tournament, with the second largest participation of the last ten years.

The event, first held in 1950, has attracted more than 50 teams from 13 countries, including Puerto Rico, Britain, Canada, France, Mexico, South Korea, Lithuania, Cuba, and notably the United States – with 28 boats.

The competition involves billfish species – like marlin, tuna, and wahoo – and promotes their conservation, abiding by the International Game Fishing Federation’s rules, using a tag and release method to accumulate points.

The foreign minister of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, called out the five most unequal countries for being the same ones that have attacked Venezuela through the OAS.

According to data from a new report, as of 2015 Venezuela and Uruguay have the most equal wealth distribution in Latin America, while Colombia and Guatemala are the most unequal Latin American nations.

The report was published by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL), which is a United Nations regional commission headquartered in Santiago, Chile.

The report’s data indicates that on the Gini coefficient, Venezuela and Uruguay have the most equal wealth distributions in Latin America, each having coefficients of 0.40 or less, compared to the continent’s average of 0.469.

Conversely, the five nations with the highest levels of inequality in Latin America are Colombia, Guatemala, Brazil, Panama, and Mexico, each with a Gini coefficient greater than 0.50.

Although the US$2.8 billion deal is a boost to the economy, opposition leaders accused Goldman Sachs of providing a “lifeline” to a “dictatorship.”

Venezuelan opposition leaders have accused the major Wall Street investment bank, Goldman Sachs, of supporting a “dictatorial regime” for purchasing US$2.8 billion in bonds from the Venezuelan national oil company PDVSA, in spite of the fact that the purchase is a boost to the Venezuelan economy, Reuters reported.

“Goldman Sachs has made an immoral agreement that makes them complicit in the violation of human rights in Venezuela,” President of the Opposition controlled Venezuelan National Assembly, Julio Borges, said Tuesday on his Twitter account.

“To extend a lifeline of US$2.8 billion to the dictatorship of Nicolas Maduro, Goldman Sachs is now complicit in the repression and the abuses of human rights in our country, that have resulted in more than 50 deaths and thousands of injuries,” Borges said in a letter to Goldman Sachs.

Goldman Sachs confirmed the purchase, but denied any interaction with or connection to the Venezuelan Government of President Nicolas Maduro, having purchased the bonds on a “secondary market from a broker,” Reuters reported.

This week will soon be a memorable ‘week that was’ in Caribbean and South American history.

It’s difficult to say ahead what it will be remembered for. But come this coming Wednesday, May 31, governments of the smaller independent nations in the two neighboring regions will show the world whether they have nurtured the ability to reject external pressures to support larger nations pursuing their own selfish political ambitions in their continental and island space.

The upcoming May 31 meeting of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) is not without controversy, having been convened through suspicious circumstances – some of which violate the OAS’ own statutes governing summoning of meetings, as well as its ‘Democratic Charter’ relating to external intervention in the internal affairs of member-states of such regional and international bodies.

It is also a bit of history in replay, this time through a slow-motion coup against Venezuela – a small nation that is both Caribbean and South American and a stalwart state promoting political and economic integration to lessen the region’s historic and still growing dependence on North America and the European Union (EU).

Venezuela has for over a decade been advocating and charting the way, along with Cuba, for the transformation of the petroleum-based PetroCaribe initiative into a new regional political and economic pact that will lead to a Caribbean and South American Economic Zone based on pooling of resources and skills in the common interests of member-nations.

For just as long, Washington has been seeking ways and means to reverse the political tide in Caracas – and it now feels certain it can put gears in motion to achieve that intention.

Courting for blessings…

More than five decades after South American nations approved the expulsion of Cuba from the and over three decades after the Caribbean provided cover for U.S. military intervention in Grenada, today’s governments are being courted, at the OAS again, to bless another US-led intervention in their region, this time in Venezuela.

As with Cuba following its 1959 Revolution and Grenada after its 1979 Revolution, Washington has already used its powerful regional influences to divide governments in pursuit of its political objectives in a region it still considers ‘America’s backyard’.

Cuba was expelled from the OAS in 1961 and has refused to return, even if invited, for as long as the OAS continues to be regarded by Havana as the ‘U.S. Ministry of Colonies in the Americas’.

Jorge Arreaza, minister for development of ecological mining explained that the visit by the South African officials took shape after a series of previous meetings in which agreements were reached “that are being fulfilled thanks to the will of the South African people.”

“We hope that with the visit of the South African delegation and businesses, we can agree to a joint venture under the terms established by Venezuelan law as soon as possible,” said Arreaza.

Venezuelans hoping to become representatives in the national Constituent Assembly can now register, while nominations of candidates have been scheduled to take place between June 6 and 10, electoral authorities announced Tuesday.

Tibisay Lucena, director of the National Electoral Council of Venezuela, known as CNE, detailed the timeline and opened the floor to questions about the new voting process during a press conference in Caracas.

The announcement comes after President Nicolas Maduro announced last week that the national Constituent Assembly, a process that will rewrite the Venezuelan Constitution, will be made up of 540 members — 364 regional representatives, 168 sector representatives and eight Indigenous representatives.

The latest test involved a short-range Scud which flew about 450km before landing in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) between the Korean Peninsula and Japan on Monday, according to the U.S. Pacific Command. This is the third test in as many weeks, and the 12th this year.

“We will never tolerate North Korea’s continued provocations that ignore repeated warnings by the international community,” Abe told reporters.

The message declared that the only violations of human rights that have been committed in Venezuela in recent weeks have been perpetrated by the violent opposition.

More than 70 political and social organizations from Africa, the Americas and Europe sent a solidarity message Saturday to the Bolivarian government denouncing the “violent actions carried out in Venezuela by the opposition.”

The statement began by describing the signatories as “all the political organizations, social groups and people that … militate for the defense of just causes and in favor of progressive movements that fight in the world to defend the sovereignty and independence of the peoples, for the achievement of a world of peace, justice and equality.”